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Saturday, December 7, 2013

OCLC Link Appears in FamilySearch Library Catalog

I have been waiting for this to happen for quite a long time now. This post's title may not mean a lot to you, but if you understand what is going on, you will see the huge benefit this development will have to genealogists around the world. Essentially, as I have noted previously, the OCLC WorldCat.org catalog will now start to include entries from the FamilySearch Library Catalog. Thanks to Michael McCormick for his blog post on Enduring Legacy Genealogy, for noticing this change.

OK, now to the explanation of what is going on. Here is a screenshot of the revised Catalog page from FamilySearch.org:

The reference in the sidebox state the following:

Other Catalogs to Consider:

WorldCat is the world's largest network of library content and services. WorldCat libraries are dedicated to providing access to their resources on the Web, where most people start their search for information.

ArchiveGrid is a collection of nearly two million archival material descriptions, including MARC records from WorldCat and finding aids harvested from the web.

What this means, translated into the common language, is that the FamilySearch Catalog may now start appearing in the WorldCat.org online catalog. WorldCat.org is on my list as one of the top five essential websites in the world. It is the combination of over 70,000 libraries and over 2 billion catalog entries. It is an indispensable tool for finding almost any book or other document in the world. Inclusion of the FamilySearch Catalog will not only make life easier for genealogists, it will also make the items in the FamilySearch Catalog more available to everyone around the world.